Category Archives: michele

Ten years ago yesterday

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Ten years ago yesterday, Michele and I were married. I find it hard to grasp because ten years sounds like such a long time. On the other hand, the time has flown by. When we got married, I also became an instant parent.  Keegan was eight.  Ten years later, Keegan is a senior in high school and he hopes to be in college in the fall.  And now there are three more children: Tristan, Brinley, and Cohen.  What else has changed?  Too many things to mention.

Happy anniversary to us!

I look at this photo of us on our wedding day and think, how much younger I looked then!  I’m old and gray now :-)

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Keegan’s surgery and more

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I haven’t written here in quite a while even though a lot of different things have been happening. One that happened today is Keegan’s surgery.  Michele is still at the hospital with him as he is in recovery.  Michele called a while ago to say that the doctor said the surgery went well; that his ACL was completely torn, and he also had to repair one of the miniscus.  I’m relieved that it went well. He’ll have an eight month recovery time, at least.  Keegan has been very anxious about the surgery so I think it is good for him to finally have it over with.  Now, perhaps the hardest part, full recovery, begins.  He’ll be out of school for the rest of the week, and we’ll see how he does over the weekend before we let him go back next week.

I’ve been taking lots of photos and posting them on the photos page, so check them out.  There are photos of a trip to the Bristol Renaissance Faire, a nearby park, Labor Day activities, and more.  I really like my new Nikon D60, a birthday present.  I haven’t even begun to figure out all of its features but am especially looking forward to having it on hand when I go to the Boundary Waters for a week in the near future with my brother, Dan.  Aside from fishing and hiking, I am most looking forward to the opportunity to take lots of nature photos with the new camera.

Last weekend we put in a new Pergo-style floor in the lower level of our house.  It’s a lot of work but the end result is worth it.  Now we need to paint!  I am sick of having the yucky, bland, off white, as-cheap-as-can-be, new-house paint everywhere after living in our house for over three years.

At work, things have been quite hectic.  Remember that scene from the original Star Wars movie where Luke, Leia, Chewy, and Han Solo are in the giant trash compactor and the walls start closing in?  That’s how it feels right now at work.  In a few weeks, my team will be moving into an entirely different organization and although it is good to finally have more definition about what will be happening, and the move will be beneficial, it will still be stressful.  Plus I’ll be sad to leave many library colleagues who have become good friends over the last three years.

Free is good

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This weekend we were able to get a popup camper for free. That’s right, free. You can’t beat free, right? Free is good. Well, the camper needs some TLC and repair, actually, and it’s 36 years old. But still, we’re pretty excited about having it and we are already planning some camping trips. Below is a gallery of photos Michele took of it yesterday in our driveway.

Sick today

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Last night was difficult due to Brinley and Cohen coming into our bed in the wee hours. I gave up trying to sleep around 3 a.m. and went to sit on the couch in the living room. I couldn’t get to sleep for quite a while though because the cut on my forehead (long story) was aching a lot for some reason. Then when I woke up I had a really severe headache that I have spent most of the day trying to get rid of.

The past weekend was pretty nice because we did some fun things and then some other things that weren’t fun but needed to be done. On Saturday afternoon we went to Lamb’s Farm to see their pet store and resale shop. The kids loved it there. On the way back home we drove through Independence Grove to see the amenities there. I think we’ll definitely go back to go for walks and bike rides. They also have a nice beach for swimming. Best of all, everything is free.

Sunday afternoon the kids and Michele spent outside playing. I went to Home Depot and picked up an electric leaf blower, a carpet cleaner, and a few other things. Keegan then used the leaf blower to finally clean the gutters and Michele used it after that to clean off the driveway and gather the huge amount of leaves in our yard into big piles. While they were busy at that task I cleaned the carpet in our family room downstairs and also the living room, hallway, and stairs. I am really pleased with the steam cleaning system I purchased. It was expensive but worth it. When you have four messy kids and two extra messy dogs who often have “accidents” then you can imagine just how gross and dirty the floors were before I cleaned them. I think the steam cleaner I purchased already paid for itself when compared to the cost of hiring a professional company to do the cleaning.

What’s been happening

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I haven’t posted anything in a great while and that’s a good thing.  I just haven’t felt like writing anything.  Now that it’s January 1, 2008, I felt I should write the first post of the new year.

So, what’s been happening in my life?  Well, I’ve been enjoying the Christmas and New Year’s holidays.  I had to work last week, which was dull.  But I’m thankful to have had some time off anyway.  We hosted Christmas Eve (which is when my family gives presents and does the usual Christmas-y things).  It required a tremendous amount of work to make our house somewhat presentable given that it usually looks like a bomb has exploded.  But we managed to pull it all together and we had a good time.  Michele made a lovely meal, there was plenty of yummy things to munch on, and even some Bailey’s Irish Cream was on hand to enjoy.  Christmas day was quiet and relaxed.  We had a nice meal then, too, and sat around watching movies at my brother-in-law’s house.

This past few days were spent with my side of the family in east central Illinois.  We hadn’t been there in several months — quite a long time.  It was great to see everyone, including little Russel, my niece’s baby boy.  My nephew Ben was with his cousins in Canada so we didn’t see him, and my brother, Dan, wasn’t feeling well so we missed seeing him, too.  But everyone else was there.  One of the fun things we did was to go on our first geocaching adventure using the GPS unit my brother-in-law gave me for Christmas.  I looked up three geocaches in the area and we were able to find two out of the three.  The children enjoyed it and in the process we were able to spend some healthy time tramping around in the outdoors finding lots of interesting things like a cecropia moth’s cocoon, and seeing a flock of pheasants (something the little kids had never seen before).

Of course we enjoyed giving and receiving lots of presents.  The little kids each got some special things such as kiddie digital cameras, MP3 players, cute big fluffy animal slippers, and much more.  Michele got an iPod nano — cool!

We are thankful for many blessings, including the opportunity to spend time with both sides of our families.

Sunday morning at home

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Michele isn’t feeling well this a.m. so we won’t be going to church.  Keegan stayed overnight at a friend’s house to work on a big school project, so things around here are a bit more quiet than usual.  Today is my beautiful wife’s birthday! so that makes it an extra special day.

I’ve been watching a lot of football lately.  Keegan’s team plays every Friday night and sometimes on Saturday morning as well.  Unfortunately his team lost for the first time this past Friday, to Vernon Hills.  On Saturday his team played Vernon Hills again, and lost again, but it was great to watch the game because Keegan got to play for awhile and he got in at least one good tackle.  (The position he plays is defensive tackle.)  Yesterday afternoon while Michele and Brinley went to get groceries, I watched quite a bit of college football while Tristan and Cohen built a fort and played with knight costumes.  Those who know me well would understand how unusual it is for me to be watching football!  But you know what? I’m kinda getting into it.  I was thrilled that Illinois beat Penn State, but disappointed that Michigan State didn’t beat Wisconsin.

In other news, a good friend of mine lost her job Friday due at least in part to blogging at work.  She was apparently accused of writing negative things about her job and her co-workers, neither of which is true.  It really makes me wonder about the whole blogging at work thing.  Personally I do not have a problem with this at all, viewing it as something akin to using the telephone sometimes for a personal call, or writing a personal email while at work.  Of course, there is always the possibility for abuse, but then, there always has been.  By that I mean, the introduction of Internet access, blogs, or any other computer-related technology provided to staff did not usher in a new era of possibility for abuse or performance issues.  Think of the telephone.  Persons can abuse their telephone privileges as much or more than their Internet privileges, and the telephone predates computers and Internet access by a long shot.  What I’m trying to say is that there isn’t really anything new here, first of all; and second of all, abuse of work equipment — whether it is the telephone, the copier, or the company’s Internet access — is a performance issue.  If staff members aren’t getting work done in a reasonable amount of time, then their manager needs to look at how they are spending their time, including time spent talking on the telephone for personal reasons, or time spent browsing on the Internet, or time spent posting to a blog or commenting on other blogs.  And it is important to state that how they are spending their time in these ways is only part of the overall picture the manager needs to understand in order to figure out why staff members are not productive.  Put another way (and setting aside potential for really negative things, things that other staff might deem offensive), if my staff are getting their work done in a timely fashion or even ahead of schedule, I have no problem with them spending some work time doing personal stuff.  Folks, this is just common sense management practice.

It really galls me that so many corporations think they can truly control every aspect of what their employees do during a work day, particularly when it comes to computer and Internet use.  It galls me because as I’ve already tried to point out, this is a local, individual management issue.  But it galls me even more because work environments will never succeed in shutting down or blocking personal activity.  And I think it is extremely COUNTER productive for them to even try to do so.  This is particularly the case in this time of instant messaging, personal cell phones, email, blogs, and more.  I fully understand and support monitoring of personal activity when it becomes a performance issue, and the potential need for reprimands or other strictures for the few cases where this privilege is abused.  But even then, there needs to be a step by step process whereby a warning is issued and the staff member is given an opportunity to improve, followed by progressively stronger measures culminating, finally, with termination.

I don’t know the whole detail of my friend’s situation but I do know that her employer made claims about what she was doing and writing that were simply false, and it seems as if her dismissal came without prior warning.  This is the sign of extremely poor management.

A wild wedding weekend in Wisconsin

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This past Saturday and Sunday were spent with family in Wisconsin whom we hadn’t seen for quite a while.  The occasion for the visit was the marriage of one of Michele’s cousins.  It was particularly nice to visit a bit with Michele’s paternal grandma, whom I admire and respect.  She, like so many unfortunate others, is a survivor of tremendous spousal abuse.  She remains unbowed by that, with her good outlook on life, and her humor, definitely intact.  Visiting the small town where my father-in-law grew up is like stepping back in time and into a completely different world.  And I don’t mean that necessarily in a negative sense.  The wedding itself was novel for me because it was the first time I had attended a Roman Catholic ceremony and frankly, most of the time I had difficulty following the service and at times found myself standing when I should be sitting, and sitting when I should be standing.

That evening, we attended the wedding reception at a nearby bar/supper club.  If you don’t know what that is, you haven’t been to Wisconsin.  The number of guests who participated in the family style, homecooked meal was enormous.  I think at least 200 people were there.  At first we were entertained by a polka band.  One of Michele’s uncles used to have a polka band of his own and he enjoyed playing and singing with the group for a while.  There was a lot of dancing and general revelry.  One of the funnier things that was that our shy, reserved little girl, Brinley, turned out to be a dancing demon.  She usually is quite reserved around people she doesn’t know.  She is even known to run and hide when someone comes to the door of our house.  Yet during the wedding reception, she had a tremendous amount of fun prancing around the dance floor, dancing with her older cousins.  I think she danced for two hours straight!  Cohen danced for a bit, too.  Most of us just sat and watched and chatted.  Another of Michele’s uncles is one of the funniest people I know and he kept me in stitches with his pithy remarks on the various guests.

Sunday morning and afternoon we spent at Michele’s grandma’s house, visiting with the extended family.  Most of the time, we just sat outside in the garage and driveway, eating, talking, or just sitting there watching the younger children run around and play.  It was cooler outside than inside, anyway.  Most homes up there don’t have air conditioning.  I was able to visit a little bit with Michele’s great aunt Grace.  Like Michele’s grandma, Aunt Grace had had a very hard life, yet she was peaceful and upbeat.  She told me, more than once, that when she had her latest checkup, her doctor (himself no spring chicken at 70 years of age) said she was in better health than him!

There were a lot of houseplants in Grandma J.’s house and outside on the driveway, more than I ever remembered before.  Turns out they belonged to Uncle Tim, and he wanted to get rid of as many of them as possible because he didn’t have room for them any more.  It was like having Christmas in September for me!  We came home with three different orchids, two clivia miniata (kaffir lily) plants, a firecracker plant, and many more.  I have never owned orchids or clivia before and both kinds of plants are usually quite expensive.  I was pretty thrilled to get them.

We arrived back home late Sunday night, all tired out.  Yesterday was spent just sitting around inside, not doing anything of importance except getting some much-needed rest.